Treated for spavins - should he be improving by now?

catembi

catembi

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Adrian has spavins in both hocks & has been treated with injections into the joints. He is now on bute twice a day & adequan injections & I'm supposed to be doing walk & trot work with him.

Was expecting a dramatic improvement by now but he's still not that keen on working. He will take the contact & move forward now & then, but the rest of the time has to be chivvied along.

Am I expecting too much too soon, or should we be seeing some signs of progress by now?
 
Unfortunately, medicating the hocks doesnt work with every horse. Three horses on the yard have had this treatment and it only worked in one case. IME I would expect to see an improvement very early on, but discuss it with your vet. Is Adrian on a joint suppliment?
 
I would ask your vet if he is willing to give your horse a course of Tildren. It can be very beneficial to certain types of horses, but it depends on the type of spavin and how far advanced it is. My horse has had 3 lots now.
 
When were they done? Mine had his at the end of June, both hocks injected, plus course of Adequan and Metacam. I saw an improvement within 2 weeks but it took a while to see a massive improvements. I just hacked him out for over a month (lucky it was summer
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) then slowly started to introduce school work. I also did lots on the long reins and in hand to encourage him to start to use himself properly again. It took a while but I'd say I didn't realise how much it had helped for maybe a couple of months or so.

It's worth talking to your vet again as the injections don't work for all horses. My physio was surprised that I was given Adequan for spavins as she seemed to think Tildren was the "new thing" so maybe chat to your vet about that too.

Hope you get him sorted
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This is our 2nd week of ridden work following a week of box rest after the joint injections. He's on adequan every 4 days & I think we've got 2 to go.

I'm going round & round the outside track of the school to try to stay on a straight line as much as poss. I'm meant to be hacking but I work in the City so it's dark before I'm even home. Therefore it's school + floodlight or nothing.

I'm a bit disappointed cos I thought he'd go, wahey that feels better & we'd be up & running again.

Maybe there's a glimmer of hope...??? I hate horses sometimes...
 
Try to stop looking at him and wondering. I found it really difficult to fight the urge to lunge him every day and trot him up "just to see" but I had to stop myself. Mine felt a bit better after a couple of weeks but vet said the jabs take at least 2 weeks to really start to work. Keep on with what you're doing and try not to analyse it. As I said, it took a good while before mine really felt "wahey" sort of better.

I think I did about 6 weeks of primarily hacking with some school work (in walk, in hand over poles) and I introduced a bit of leg yield and SI out hacking in walk too. After about 4 weeks I did short bursts of trotting on hacks and vet told me to take him for short canters in straight lines, which I did but was really disappointed with how he felt. I expected a miracle and he didn't feel much different. TBH it wasn't really until a couple of months after when I had a jumping lesson that I really noticed how much better he felt. He'd totally thrown the towel in SJ before having the treatment, wouldn't even walk over a pole, and suddenly he was tanking me off into fences, bucking and squealing afterwards...
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Take it easy. The longer you can take to get him back into work, the better he will be IMHO. Did he go lame with them? I also had some osteo and physio work done on my boy after the treatment as vet said he was quite sore across his back because of it. He had osteo about 2 weeks after, then another 2 weeks after that, and physio about 2 months after that. Chances are yours will be a bit sore somewhere because he'll probably have compensated for his hocks so you might find, as I did, that you notice the improvement more once the soreness has been released.

ETA - have you got him on a good joint supplement? Also talk to your vet and farrier about remedial shoeing. Mine has lateral extensions behind for the support.
 
Early days yet ! Its difficult to be patient I know. Today is exactly 6 weeks from having steroids into my boy's hocks.It has been really boring walking and walking and walking. I only noticed a difference about a week ago. I am now allowed to do a bit of trotting so we had our first proper hack across the fields on Sunday. A trot across springy turf felt fantastic. I have bought him a new saddle - long term compensating for the spavins had altered his saddle.
Hang in there!
 
Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Yes he's got a sore back - in fact, this is how I first noticed the problem. He's been slow for ages but I thought it was just him, but then he started biting on being tacked up. I got his chiro out & he had some sore spots behind the saddle. He also had a deflated WOW airbag which I hadn't noticed. After the saddle was sorted, he was still going v badly, so I got the vet.

He was never noticeably lame, maybe as they're on both sides, so he was just v v slow with no push from behind. On his vetting cert he was 1/10 intermittent behind lunged in a tight circle on concrete but the vet said not to worry cos most horses would show that under those circs. The right side is worse.

He's still been doing BD & BSJA & doing reasonably, but it's been more & more effort whereas when I first had him, I absolutely couldn't hold him into a jump.

Getting less cross to tack up & we have maybe 3 or 4 instances in 30 mins where he's working soft & round & is taking me forward.

Ho hum, won't rush to renew my BSJA membership, then...
 
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